can someone in the know please post what the real shade of LAKE PLACID BLUE is? that is, the color of LPB as it left the factory from fender in the 60's fresh and clean - not aged or yellow.

I was under the impression that this was lake placid blue:


but im told its actually this:

I'd say neither of those is LPB.

The first one you have which looks like a mustang is actually "Competition Burgundy".

The second one could possibly be LPB but (in my opinion anyway) looks too deep a shade of blue although this could be the lighting or what's reflecting onto it. It seems to be one of the harder colours to accurately capture in a photo as the angle of light seems to change it so much.

This here is LPB:


Cheers.

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MIM Std Tele, MIM HSS Strat, Homemade Mongrel Tele, Blues Jr, Champ600, coupla pedals...sweeeet!

It's very difficult to ascertain what the original LPB is as most vintage LPB have such variations in fading that there are many different shades that were once in fact LPB.Your best bet would be to find a reissue of a 60s era Fender catalogue,these are readily available on ebay.When I was restoring my 65 Mustang the closest to Lake Placid Blue that I could find was Candy Apple Blue.BTW Fender used a lot of their colours from paints available from the big 3 car makers and put their own names on them,there was a thread a while back with a list of the manufacturers colours and the Fender equivalent.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

The guitar in the first pic is aged, so that's why it looks kinda greenish. You can see the actual color in the places the pickguard was covering. And the Strat Mhainz posted is a perfect example. The Jaguar is too dark.

Another problem with some of the vintage original colors is they were mixed as they went.
I either read or heard in an interview Leo or one of his sidekicks talking about going to the paint store and mixing colors till they liked what they saw.
It's going to be much more consistent now.

Some colors are still a little inconsistent. I remember seeing some brand new Arctic White Std. Strats a few years back that were cream colored, almost "vintage white" (the banana pudding color) and more recently they are much whiter. The same happens with Olympic White at times - even in the 60's they would look different, depending if the guitar was top coated or not.

That "LPB" Jaguar looks more like the old "Electron Blue" that used to be available to MIM Standards.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2731/408 ... e02c_b.jpg

LPB is one sexy color for a Strat! I've been looking at a lot of LPB Strats lately, my next one has to be that color.

Old Lake Placid Blue guitars that have had a lot of light exposure look quite green.

+1

Especially those instruments that were clear-coated with nitro lacquer. I've seen some pre-65 Strats that I'd swear were Ocean Turquoise Metallic or Teal Green Metallic until the pickguard was removed to reveal a more accurate view of the original pigment.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY